Network storage systems have been developed in response to the increasing proliferation of data requirements and web services. Network storage systems generally focus on the storage, protection and retrieval of data in large-scale environments. Such massive network storage systems are also referred to as a cloud storage system, which includes a master control server and several storage servers to provide various types of network services to a host of client devices. Cloud storage system involves storing data on multiple virtual servers that are generally hosted by a third party.
Data security is of extreme importance to all entities utilizing data processing and computing systems. Because data storage on a public cloud is distributed, single file can be divided into several pieces and stored at different location. Unauthorized access to the stored data can be initiated from external sources as well as internal sources without authorization to access the data, leading to copying or loss of valuable data. For example, an attacker can modify the encrypted data, control the flow attack and replay the attack resulting in the loss and/or corruption of the stored data and a tremendous risk for piracy of the content. The attacker can move valid data pieces around or change the correct sequence of the distributed data chunks in the control flow attack. Also, the attacker can obtain an older valid copy and replace the most recent one with the older copy in the replay attack. Hence in order to ensure a secure distributed data storage on the public cloud a data integrity verification scheme needs to overcome such types of attacks.
Based on the foregoing, it is believed that a need exists for an improved distributed cloud storage systems and methods. A need also exists for an improved data integrity verification method based on a root random number to ensure a secure distributed data storage on a public cloud, as described in greater detail herein.